Downhill Speeding Tickets for Truckers

By
Mark Bigger
|May 14, 2018

Truckers that have driven California’s freeways for any length of time know these roads are mountainous. For professional truckers, a downhill speeding ticket is an unacceptable event. Their very livelihood depends upon a blemish-free commercial driver’s license (CDL). It is crucial for truckers to understand their rights, and their duty to their families to fight every moving violation accusation.

Therefore, they must consult with a traffic ticket attorney who knows how to navigate the system. The attorney, not the driver, must look at every technicality and every defense to avoid points from getting assessed to their motor vehicle driving record (MVR).

Facts About Truckers

Truckers are not looking for a defense. They just know they were behind schedule because they were “sitting at the dock” for four hours waiting to get loaded and another 40 minutes just trying to get onto I-5. They were already more than halfway to their mandatory half-hour break before they even saw the freeway. What better way to make up a little time than letting those horses run coming downhill, anticipating the next seven-mile, five percent grade going uphill?

Did you know that at the larger, higher paying carriers the turnover rate is nearly 90 percent? Sure, the industry itself is short on truckers, but to get and keep a good job with better pay, you need to get and keep a better, blemish-free MVR. It may seem unrealistic that a trucking firm would pay all that money to train and license a trucker only to let them go for one ticket, yet it is happening. Zero-tolerance for moving violations is a thing in the trucking industry, believe it.

California Truckers and Speeding Tickets

Truckers are regularly faced with an overall disadvantage when it comes to moving violations. There’s probably more regulations on trucking and hauling America’s goods to market than any other profession.

The mountainous terrain of the state makes it challenging for professional carriers to maintain a reasonably safe speed coming downhill while giving their truck a boost for the next uphill grade. Without that boost, their truck will have difficulty maintaining 20-25 mph going up that next seven-mile, five percent grade.

Making their deadline to deliver the goods weighs heavily on the trucker who may already be running behind schedule due to loading issues and traffic jams. Or, that full load is pushing them downhill. With all the other things to watch out for, like that Prius passing them on the right, they must watch their speedometer.

While professional drivers know how to utilize their lower gears, it remains a fact that drivers still must be aware of surrounding traffic, the genuine danger of break-burnout, and maneuvering those older, more temperamental rigs through the mountain passes.

Speaking of older rigs, since the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) mandates all trucks with engines manufactured after 2000 use the Electronic Logging Device (ELD), how many owner-operators and independent truckers will change out those old rigs with newer safer trucks and add the expense of the ELD?

Truckers Must Fight Every Speeding Citation

Anyone who has ever been the unfortunate recipient of a speeding ticket has undoubtedly seen how subjective an officer's discretion can be. For example, when a police officer issues a citation, was it for their actual speed? Many trucks use governors to regulate their speed.

Accusations of measured speed using radar or laser gun can err in timing because of overdue calibration. There may even be a question of which vehicle was the actual offender. Professional drivers must fight every ticket alleging excessive speed, guilty or not.

Points, Defensive Driving Courses & Insurance Rates

If ticketed in a commercial motor vehicle (CMV), you cannot attend traffic school or a defensive driving course to mask the points from your employer or insurance companies. In fact, truckers get assessed 1.5 points for every one point that their non-commercial driving counterparts are assessed.

In CA, drivers who accumulate as few as four points in a 12-month period can have their license suspended for six months with a concurrent 12-months of probation. For those earning a living driving, this creates economic hardship and an uphill battle to keep their job. Because one of the factors to determine fleet insurance is the driving history of its drivers, many employers have taken a zero-tolerance stance when it comes to moving violations.

Assistance with how to proceed once a ticket has been issued means consulting with a CA traffic ticket attorney to mitigate the aftermath of damages. One speeding ticket should not affect a trucker’s professional career but if convicted, it will.

Bigger & Harman use a flat rate fee. You always know beforehand how much your payment will be, so there are no surprises.

Send an email, attorney@biggerharmanlaw.com. They will reply with a straightforward summary of your options as soon as they return to the office.

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